Both DesertRose and PsyBunny bring up very good points. I appreciate the positive feedback.
I don’t think I’m over-complicating things, because that routine is the same whether you sum things up under the “precast” and “heart seeker as needed” or not, its still more complicated than the rallying cry of most on the forums calling 3 button kills. I wasn’t trying to make the argument that glass cannon thieves are pro, I was simply stating they work more for the kill than they usually get credit for.
To answer DesertRose, Yes simply moving Mug to a 30 point slot probably won’t fix them completely, It was an overstatement to say it would fix everything. But I still think a distinction between downing and killing needs to be made. With no stealth, a thief can be downed fairly easy by any downed class that has built for substantial damage. I’d say its a misrepresentation to say that the thief should be able to outright own anyone 1v1 because their buddies can kill them, but its not overreaching to say that a spec similar to this that works off of trading the thief’s life for a high value target’s life should be completely viable in the meta.
I also think it is a good idea that Mug would break stealth, I neglected to mention it because I was focusing on the combo’ing issue. There’s no reason why it should be able to do damage without breaking stealth, especially since this adds to the lack of telegraphing that many people complain about. However, if you take it out of the stealth portion of the rotation, It will just get more complaints because the thief will probably just use it as an opener after the precast ie: OMG Mug shouldn’t be able to teleport AND apply basilisk venom. Nerf!
I have been tinkering around with some builds lately and think that when it comes to the shortbow, you could probably balance it nicely by raising the initiative costs. Being able to spam cluster bomb so many times at 2k a piece from point blank range is pretty crazy, especially when you can spec a 30/30/0/0/10 build with traps and focus on doing more dmg when the target is less than %50 hp. You can essentially get a AOE that hits upwards of 5k and spams 6-7 (This spam number is a guess, the damage is not. It can and will crit for that high.) times before you have to wait for initiative regen. I find I don’t use crippling shot as much as I thought I would, seeing as how If I’m chasing I find it much more reliable to use Infiltrator’s arrow rather than waste the cripple by widening then distance I have to cover. As for trick shot. I usually only hit 1k on other glass cannons, but would gladly trade a few hundred in damage damage for a couple more bounces or the ability to negate obstructed (Within reason of course: no going through walls, just around corners, above walls with no roof.) Afterall, it is supposed to be a Trick Shot.
Heartseeker being able to spam that many times doesn’t concern me because if your getting off more than 2, its a waste of initiative because that means they weren’t at low enough hp to warrant casting HS in the first place. perhaps shorten the distance of the jump a bit so people don’t spam it as a gap closer as much, or I suppose alternatively up the initiative and leave the range where it is.
Infiltrator’s Arrow is perfect and if you touch it I will gut you.
[ARM] Anvil Rock Militia Commander;
The Loryak: I speak for these beasts.
